Corrupt Files or Earlier Version

So I was finally able to find a workaround for these larger than 2 Gb files getting corrupted.  This fix results in an MP4 file that includes video & audio.  This process requires a program to handle a .zip file (built into newer versions of windows) AND requires VLC Media Player which can be downloaded for free from videolan.org.

1. First, make a copy of your .replay file you want to fix so you don't damage the original file further

2. Rename the .replay file to .zip

3. Open the .zip file and navigate to replay -> media

4. Copy out the .bin files you find inside of there to a new folder

5. Rename the .bin file to .avi

6. Open VLC Media Player and go to Tools -> Preferences -> Input / Codecs

7. About the fourth section down is "Files" and you'll see a section that says "Damaged or Incomplete AVI File".  Change this setting to "Always Fix" and click Save

8. Open the new AVI files you created in step 5

9. From here you can convert these files to mp4 by using "Convert/Save" under Media

• Click add in the File Window and select your AVI files
• Then at the bottom click the arrow next to "Convert/Save" and select "Convert"
• From here you'll want to select a conversion profile in the dropdown list.  I selected the first option "Video - H.264 +  MP3 (MP4)" and made some modifications.
  • To modify select the little gear icon, then jump to the Audio Codec tab, then change it to MP3 and change the bitrate to 320/kbps
• From here you'll click browse at the bottom of the window to name your file.  The file type should be mp4 and I removed the .avi from the default file name
• At this point, you can hit start.  You'll see this window minimize and the player window appears (if not just click the VLC Player icon in the taskbar).  You can watch the conversion progress by following the time progressed in the bottom left of the player.  When it gets to the end and the timer disappears the conversion is done.
• Congratulations!  You can now find your converted MP4 file with audio and video in the location you chose to save it.

I hope this helps everyone!!

OMG - this is driving me mad. I've spent over 2 days trying to get this program to work. I got 2 error messages (see below) the second after I clicked OK on the first message. I spent a further couple of hours looking at online support and tried following every suggestion (there are no BIN files to convert, only MPEG files in the zipped folder) to fix the issue -  nothing works. For goodness sake, take a 'DEEP DIVE' and take it offline - adjust your subscription costs, and put it out there on your notifications that this is an issue rather than waste everybody's time. In the meantime, I will now have to purchase different software to do my work - incredible disappointed with Articulate.

Sorry you're hitting that error, Jeremiah! Thanks for letting me know you already tried uninstalling/reinstalling. 

Are those two files saved to your local hard drive? If so, try these troubleshooting steps. And if you're still getting stuck, reach out to our team here. We'll try and help you sort this out!

Thanks Alyssa, I tried the troubleshooting with no luck. They are saved to my local hard drive, as I work on that first then transfer once published. 

Thanks, Jeremiah. I see the case you opened and the file you submitted there. You should hear back from our team soon!

Hello Jeremiah  - Have you resolved your problem? The same thing is happening to me. I only have Replay (360) and never worked in a previous version. I, too, installed and reinstalled but to no avail. My 'corrupt' Replay file is about 2 GB. The video is less than 10 minutes long. A colleague produced the introductory part of the video and I recorded the rest using Replay 360. I also added audio from an external file. The introductory video seems large to me. I am wondering if that is part of the problem.

Welcome, Dale! I'm sorry you're seeing that error, too.

I took a peek at Jeremiah's case and saw that my teammate, Gren, shared steps on how to recover videos from a corrupt .replay file:

1. Download and install 7-Zip – a free extraction tool
2. Right-click your Replay project file, scroll to 7-Zip, and choose Extract to <name of your project>. 
3. A folder with the same name will be created in the same location as your project file. Simply open it to see the extracted contents. (You won't be able to decipher or use some items.) 
4. Open the Replay folder and then the Media folder – your videos are stored there. You might need to change the file format for each video from *.bin to *.mpeg

Additionally, here are some great suggestions for managing Replay files!

We also want to help you with your specific file, so I've created a support case on your behalf. Expect an email from support@articulate.com shortly with some next steps ☺️

Hello everyone,

I had the same problem. I created a project in Replay with a duration of 1.5 hours and 2.83 GB in size. On saving, it took many minutes to complete. Upon opening again, it pointed to an invalid/corrupted project.

I tried to extract the .bin files in the replay/media folder. When renaming to mpeg however it shows only the audio. :(

Hello Fernando and welcome to E-Learning Heroes :)

Sorry to hear that you've run into a similar issue.

Were you able to check out the best practices that Katie shared above? You can check them out here.

You are welcome to share your file with our support team here as well to see if they can help you with the recovery.

I'm having the same problem, and I'm having it over and over again. I've lost almost two days of work because of it. This is not the first time this has happened, but every other time the projects were so small that it wasn't such a big deal to just redo them. This time, I've recreated the project three times. The very first time, I saved the project, then later tried to reopen it and got a message saying the file was corrupt or created in an earlier version. I'm using Replay 360, and it's the latest version. Ugh! An IT guy and I tried to figure out the problem, ran updates, uninstalled and then reinstalled the whole Articulate Suite, but still no luck. Eventually, I recreated the whole project, which took a very long time, and about five minutes before I was done with it, a window popped up on my screen saying Articulate Replay was stopping and closing down. Then it closed down. I lost the file completely, because I had been in the middle of recording something and hadn't had a chance to save it yet. The third time, I recreated the project again, but this time I WAS able to save it. Then, about five minutes before I was done with the whole project, another message popped up saying Articulate Replay was stopping and closing down. Then it shut down. I tried to reopen my project but got a message saying the file was corrupt or created in another version.

What is wrong with this program? lt gives me nothing but problems, and I can't afford to waste any more time on this project. This absolutely sucks. I'm so mad right now, I could throw my computer (which is high-powered and has 20 GB of RAM) through the window.

Ugh!